Journal of Professional Nursing

Leveraging the Strength of Nursing

Ellen Olshansky — 2012-01-01

As we embark on another year, we reflect on where we are and look ahead to where we are going. So much has happened in nursing and health care with so much still yet to be accomplished, and so much of what needs to be accomplished is within a context of uncertainty. In several months, the Supreme Court will rule on Health Care Reform; despite this, we are moving forward on changes and reforms in nursing. The Future of Nursing Report, commissioned by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and led by an Institute of Medicine Committee, co-chaired by Linda Burnes Bolton and Donna Shalala, has provided a strong framework for our work. We have set out eight specific recommendations, and we are now at the stage of having work groups to lead the way toward implementing these recommendations.

New American Association of Colleges of Nursing Data Show Significant Enrollment Increases in Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral Nursing Degree Programs

Bill O'Connor — 2012-01-01

How a Faculty Group's Peer Mentoring of Each Other's Scholarship Can Enhance Retention and Recruitment

Kathleen T. Heinrich, Melinda G. Oberleitner — 2012-01-01

At a time when schools of nursing seek to retain and recruit faculty ready to meet promotion and tenure requirements, many faculty are less than able to fulfill scholarly expectations. As senior scholars begin to retire, today's faculty groups are a mix of master's-prepared clinicians and recent graduates with professional (doctor of nursing practice) or research doctorates. This means that novice and midcareer faculty often lack the educational preparation for and/or a proper introduction into the scholarly role. A transition that can take 5 years or more, internalizing a scholarly identity is a process that unfolds over time in the course of presenting, publishing, and conducting research with the support of scholarly colleagues. With an eye toward easing this developmental/relational transition, chairs and deans search for professional development approaches to meet the diverse scholarly learning needs of a mixed faculty group. Given a dearth of scholar–mentors, professional development approaches that engage faculty groups in making scholarship a cooperative venture and a collective responsibility are appealing. This article explores whether a project that systematically prepared a faculty group to peer-mentor each other's scholarly success from hire to retire holds promise for fostering academic workplaces productive and pleasurable enough to attract and retain the best and the brightest.

Is Eligibility for Tenure Possible for the Doctor of Nursing Practice-Prepared Faculty?

Robert H. Nicholes, Jean Dyer — 2012-01-01

The purpose of this study was to determine the perceived feasibility of the eligibility for tenure being granted to nurses prepared at the doctor of nursing practice (DNP) level. An exploratory survey was conducted utilizing doctor of philosophy faculty and deans randomly chosen from the doctor of nursing program list obtained from the American Association of Colleges of Nursing. A questionnaire was developed that was used to gather data regarding the perceived feasibility, benefits, concerns, and challenges inherent in the tenure process as they relate to DNP-prepared faculty in becoming eligible for tenure.The findings indicate that it may be feasible for DNP-prepared faculty to become eligible for tenure. Several benefits were cited, including recruitment and retention of qualified faculty. There were concerns noted as well, the most predominant being the lack of training of the DNP to be successful in producing scholarly research. The challenges related to the need for reevaluating the criteria used in granting tenure to DNP-prepared faculty.

Understanding the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education Accreditation Process and the Role of the Continuous Improvement Progress Report

Peggy Ellis, Judith Halstead — 2012-01-01

Continuous quality improvement is an essential element of the accreditation process. This article describes the content and process for writing the Continuous Improvement Progress Report (CIPR) required by the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education (CCNE) at the midpoint of the accreditation cycle. The rationale for writing the report and the purpose for the contents of the report are reviewed. The content of the CIPR addresses all standards and key elements of the CCNE Standards for Accreditation of Baccalaureate and Graduate Degree Nursing Programs, amended April 2009. Many program administrators and faculty lack an understanding of the significance of the report, how to write the report, or what should be included. This article is designed to help guide the writers of the report through the process.

Preceptorship: Using an Ethical Lens to Reflect on the Unsafe Student

Vicki Earle-Foley, Florence Myrick, Florence Luhanga, Olive Yonge — 2012-01-01

Abstract: Patient safety has become a worldwide health concern, and health care professionals have a moral and ethical responsibility to promote patient safety. The clinical education of many health care professionals often involves a preceptorship or field experience wherein students are assigned to work one-to-one with a preceptor or field educator so that they can be socialized into the profession and receive a reality-oriented experience. Health care professionals who accept the responsibility of being a preceptor face additional workload and stress, especially when the students to whom they are assigned are not meeting the expectations of safe, professional practice. Taking a stand against unsafe students is an important way for preceptors to promote patient safety. Given the nature of the stress and the inherent ethical issues associated with precepting an unsafe student, it is useful to examine this experience through an ethical lens. Included in this article is a brief overview of preceptorship as a model of clinical education, together with a discussion of the nature of the ethical decisions that preceptors face when precepting an unsafe student. Ethical theories, namely, virtue ethics and utilitarianism, are also explored and serve to provide the ethical lens through which preceptors can reflect upon their experiences with unsafe students.

The Empathy Enigma: An Empirical Study of Decline in Empathy Among Undergraduate Nursing Students

Julia Ward, Julianne Cody, Mary Schaal, Mohammadreza Hojat — 2012-01-01

An empathic relationship between caregiver and patient not only defines the quality of the patient's experience as a recipient of care, it also contributes to patient outcomes. This longitudinal study was designed to examine changes in empathy during an academic year among undergraduate nursing students. Participants were 214 undergraduate nursing students who completed the Jefferson Scale of Empathy at the beginning and at the end of 2006-2007 academic year. Statistical analyses showed a statistically significant decline of empathy for nursing students who were exposed more than others to patient encounters during study period (F(2, 211)= 4.2, p < 0.01). Findings are consistent with those found among medical students in that nursing students' encounters with patients which ironically are supposed to strengthen empathic engagement have shown a decline in student empathy. Suggestions for improving empathic behaviors in nursing students are discussed.

Predictors of Knowledge Gains Using Simulation in the Education of Prelicensure Nursing Students

Mary Ann Shinnick, Mary Woo, Lorraine S. Evangelista — 2012-01-01

Gains in knowledge and self-efficacy using human patient simulation (HPS) in the education of prelicensure nursing students have been reported. However, the predictors of improved learning outcomes using this teaching methodology are not known. Using a two-group (participated in HPS, did not participate in HPS), repeated-measures, experimental design, we examined the predictors of higher scores on a Knowledge Questionnaire in 162 students (age = 25.7 ± 6.6, gender = 85.5% female) from four prelicensure cohorts at three nursing schools. Statistical analysis consisted of t-tests, ANOVA and stepwise logistic regression. Covariates included age, gender, learning style, baseline critical thinking, baseline self-efficacy, group membership (control or experimental), and school. Membership in the experimental group was the only statistically significant independent predictor (P < .001) of knowledge gains among the covariates entered into the regression analysis. Members of the control group were two times less likely than those in the experimental group to be in the higher scored group (P < .001), yet this changed once the control group participated in HPS. Our findings show that HPS can independently improve test scores. This study provides evidence that HPS; is an effective teaching methodology for prelicensure nursing students regardless of age, learning style, or critical thinking ability.

Synergy for Patient Safety and Quality: Academic and Service Partnerships to Promote Effective Nurse Education and Clinical Practice

Gregory A. DeBourgh — 2012-01-01

Responding to the growing concern about medical error and patient harm, nurse educators are seeking innovative strategies to ensure that nursing students develop the knowledge, skills, and attitudes that enable them to safely and effectively manage patient care. A nursing school and hospital affiliate engaged in a partnership to increase opportunities for students to acquire these competencies. The Synergy Partnership Model aligns agency safety and quality initiatives with the school's student outcome competencies. The partnership model establishes participant commitment, clarifies professional actions and accountabilities, and structures the integration of student learning with the clinical practice of agency nurses and physicians. A collection of evidence-based, best-practices resources provides students, faculties, and staff the tools to implement the partnership paradigm. A descriptive pilot study design with a convenience sample of students (N = 24) enrolled in a third-semester, prelicensure clinical nursing course measured students' safety and quality knowledge and the students' perceptions of team behaviors and communication effectiveness. Survey data reveal moderate to large effect sizes in gains for safety and quality knowledge and for students' increased confidence in their impact on patient care outcomes.

Global Partnerships for Professional Development: A Cambodian Exemplar

Kathie Lasater, Michele Upvall, Ann Nielsen, Manila Prak, Richard Ptachcinski — 2012-01-01

Nurses have been volunteering to provide direct patient care in developing countries for several decades. As a result, countries have begun to develop their health care workforce capacity and standards of care, but educational and professional development needs have emerged. Global partnerships involving volunteers can assist developing countries to fulfill these needs, but little literature focuses on maximizing volunteers' experiences.Through global partnerships and collaboration, the leadership and academic capacity of nurses and other health care professionals in developing countries can be enhanced. In Cambodia specifically, the Khmer Rouge executed many educated health care personnel in the late 1970s, effectively eliminating a generation of mentors and leaders that could facilitate the professional development of the current workforce. One outcome may be the dearth of baccalaureate and graduate nursing programs in Cambodia. Two teams of U.S. volunteers and one of their Cambodian partners, a nursing education coordinator at a nongovernmental children's hospital, offer their experiences in collaborating, including the mutual benefits to both of such a partnership and the lessons learned. The authors will delineate several exemplars from their experiences of teaching and professional development.

Letter to the Editor

Gail W. Stuart — 2012-01-01

I commend on their excellent article on “Evaluating the outcomes of a distance-accessible PhD program.” It is informative and raises critical issues about measuring and documenting the outcomes of our education programs in nursing. I was struck, however, by the juxtaposition of this article with the release of the newest rankings of graduate schools of nursing in the country in the 2012 edition of America's Best Graduate Schools by the US News & World Report. As educators, we firmly espouse the critical importance of outcome measurement and evidence-based decision making. However, here, in a national survey that the nursing community endorses, we defy the inclusion of even a single performance indicator.

2012-01-01

Editorial Board

2012-01-01

Information for Authors

2012-01-01

Journal of Professional Nursing

Leveraging the Strength of Nursing

New American Association of Colleges of Nursing Data Show Significant Enrollment Increases in Baccalaureate, Master’s, and Doctoral Nursing Degree Programs

How a Faculty Group's Peer Mentoring of Each Other's Scholarship Can Enhance Retention and Recruitment

Is Eligibility for Tenure Possible for the Doctor of Nursing Practice-Prepared Faculty?

Understanding the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education Accreditation Process and the Role of the Continuous Improvement Progress Report

Preceptorship: Using an Ethical Lens to Reflect on the Unsafe Student

The Empathy Enigma: An Empirical Study of Decline in Empathy Among Undergraduate Nursing Students

Predictors of Knowledge Gains Using Simulation in the Education of Prelicensure Nursing Students

Synergy for Patient Safety and Quality: Academic and Service Partnerships to Promote Effective Nurse Education and Clinical Practice

Global Partnerships for Professional Development: A Cambodian Exemplar

Letter to the Editor

Table of Contents

Editorial Board

Information for Authors